1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information processing apparatuses, information processing methods, recording media, data structures, and programs, and more particularly, to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, a recording medium, a data structure, and a program suited for browsing electronic publications.
2. Description of the Related Art
Paper has been conventionally used as a main medium for publishing publications, such as newspapers and magazines. As computers have advanced, their usage has been expanded, and many networks have been made, publishing with media other than paper, that is, electronic publishing, has been spread.
Electronic publishing is especially suited for publishing publications having a huge amount of information, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, and illustrated reference books. For example, one compact disk read only memory (CD-ROM) can store an encyclopedia of about 30 volumes. Dictionaries and encyclopedias which have been published by paper are converted to digital forms, and not only texts and images but sound and moving images are stored in a predetermined storage medium, or in a storage section included in a personal computer or a predetermined reproduction apparatus at its inside. The user uses the personal computer or the predetermined reproduction apparatus in which, for example, dictionary data has been stored or into which a recording medium that has stored dictionary data has been loaded to input a desired item to search for the information and to reproduce the data.
As the Internet has been rapidly spread, on-line dictionaries have also been spread in which data is stored in a server and the user can use through the Internet. In addition, since recording media have been made compact and have had a large capacity, compact electronic dictionaries have also been used widely.
FIG. 1A shows an example display screen of a sentence-equivalent dictionary. In the display screen 1, the body of the sentence-equivalent dictionary is displayed in the same format as in the paper version of the dictionary. A scroll bar (not shown) can be operated to scroll the screen to see the data described before and after the data being displayed, in the same way as turning the pages of the paper version of the dictionary.
FIG. 1B shows the data of the portion displayed in the display screen 1 shown in FIG. 1A. In the data shown in FIG. 1B, each text data displayed on the display screen 1 is enclosed by <P> and </P> and described (in a paragraph). The data corresponding to the display screen 1 may include data indicating the color and size of characters or the type of fonts, but such data is not shown in the figure.
When the same data as that shown in FIG. 1A is used to generate an electronic publication in which a pop-up window 7 is displayed if a predetermined operation is executed such as moving a cursor 6 to text data shown on a display screen 5 or moving the cursor 6 and clicking, as shown in FIG. 2A, it is necessary to generate data shown in FIG. 2B corresponding to the data displayed in FIG. 2A.
As shown in FIG. 2B, the text data displayed on the display screen 5 is not only paragraphed by <P> and </P> but has a refid attribute, an action attribute, and a show attribute. More specifically, in the electronic publication shown in FIG. 2A, when the operation input specified by the action attribute of a predetermined text is received, the text data described at another portion, specified by a predetermined ID is referenced, and the pop-up window 7 in which the referenced text data is written is displayed. When the cursor 6 is moved such that it is on the text data of “I take his hand.” and a click operation is executed on the display screen 5 shown in FIG. 2A, for example, the pop-up window 7 in which the text data indicated by id=“23” is described is displayed. When the cursor 6 is moved such that it is on the text data of “I take the pencil.” and a click operation is executed on the display screen 5 shown in FIG. 2A, the pop-up window 7 in which the text data indicated by id=“24” is described is displayed.
FIG. 2C shows the data referenced by the data shown in FIG. 2B. Since Japanese text data of “” is indicated by id=“23,” when the cursor 6 is moved such that it is on the text data of “I take his hand.” and a click operation is executed on the display screen 5, the Japanese text data is described on the pop-up window 7 and displayed. Since Japanese text data of “” is indicated by id=“24,” when the cursor 6 is moved such that it is on the text data of “I take the pencil.” and a click operation is executed on the display screen 5, the Japanese text data is described on the pop-up window 7 and displayed.
In summary, in conventional electronic publications, even when the original information is exactly the same, it is necessary to generate completely different data depending on display methods, as described by referring to FIG. 1A and FIG. 2C.